Plato's ideology and the Catholic Church

[Dimentio]

I realised something today while being out bicycling.

The Catholic Church and the society it fostered reminds piece by piece of the "good government" envisioned by Aristotle, where philosopher-kings are supposed to control society through...

Well, best I explain from the start.

Plato saw history as a degenerating dialectal process, where the "good government" (aristocracy/patriarchy) is undermined by a successive string of bad governments culminating in "democracy" (where people are ruling). He imagined some sort of system with a ruling elite composed of philosophers ruling by virtue of an ideology used to keep the people in their place.

The platonic state has three components:

Philosophers/priests, are living secluded and in material simplicity, acts as the moral and spiritual leadership of the community.

Warriors, are also living secluded and used as a second echelon when open rebellion happens.

The people, who are not a part of this system. But they could become philosophers if talented.

In a lot of ways, this system reminds of Europe when the Catholic Church finally had gained supremacy, in the 10th and 11th centuries and onward to the beginning of the 14th century. In fact, it is almost an exact replica of Plato's vision of "the good society".

I wonder if not christianity, as well as other mystery cults in the Roman Empire, could have been engineered by Platonic philosophers in the quest of finding an ideology to control the people?

[ComradeOm]

The platonic state has three components:

Philosophers/priests, are living secluded and in material simplicity, acts as the moral and spiritual leadership of the community.

Warriors, are also living secluded and used as a second echelon when open rebellion happens.

The people, who are not a part of this system. But they could become philosophers if talented.

In a lot of ways, this system reminds of Europe when the Catholic Church finally had gained supremacy, in the 10th and 11th centuries and onward to the beginning of the 14th century. In fact, it is almost an exact replica of Plato's vision of "the good society"I'm not up to date on my Plato but that does not sound like any medieval society that I'm familiar with. I mean, it makes no sense to argue that the warrior caste were "secluded", or otherwise removed from society, when they actually comprised its ruling class and were actively involved in the daily administration of the medieval state. Similarly the growth of the Church's temporal power during these centuries was a direct result of its growing engagement, not removal, from the mundane processes of governing


I wonder if not christianity, as well as other mystery cults in the Roman Empire, could have been engineered by Platonic philosophers in the quest of finding an ideology to control the people?Nah, that was the work of the Illuminati and Freemasons

[Dimentio]

Certainly, the ruling class which the church was in medieval Europe was very much involved in the daily lives of the people, even more so than the nobility. Moreover, in the catholic parts of Europe, the Church was actually considered superior to the nobility. A papal decree could actually hurt even a monarch quite much.

It was first in 1303 when papal supremacy was seriously challenged.

Moreover, ideas attempted IRL never look as they were supposed to in theory.